


lift your head, and let your feelings out instead

by medumyce



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Episode: s01e03 Hard Times, Fluff, Historical, M/M, iron age britain, pictish ocs that aren't really important, this fic is weird idk how to tag it, what's a bit of handholding between friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25508218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medumyce/pseuds/medumyce
Summary: Aziraphale and Crawly meet again in iron age Alba.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21
Collections: Holly Jolly July: a Good Omens Gift Exchange





	lift your head, and let your feelings out instead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ParmeJeanneCheese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParmeJeanneCheese/gifts).



> written for the holly jolly july discord event; thanks @eveningstarcatcher for organizing it. title from a cat stevens song because why the fuck not. lastly, if you can spot the firefly reference, you win my eternal love!!!

_Alba_

_100 B.C._

It was a cold day. All the days in Alba had been cold. Aziraphale’s instructions were, in a Heavenly way of being strict enough to allow no wiggle room while still being vague enough to confuse him, to more or less keep the peace. He could do that, perhaps, he thought, if he could find an excuse to squeeze himself out of the conversation between Galans and Unust, which he had lost the thread of several minutes ago.

“Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale looked away from the pair of men, and smiled despite himself when he saw who it was. Crawly had a curious way of doing appearing wherever Aziraphale happened to be. Had done too many times at this point for it to _really_ be a coincidence. This time, apart from the heavy veil covering his eyes, he was dressed approximately the same as Aziraphale was. There had been that time in Persia that Aziraphale still laughed about, but animal skins were hard to get wrong.

“Hello, Crawly,” he said as his—not friend, exactly; more of a sworn enemy—approached him. 

“Didn’t think it could be you,” Crawly replied, sounding curiously glad to see Aziraphale. “Here on assignment? Or holiday?”

“My people don’t get holidays,” Aziraphale said smugly. 

“‘Course not, I’d never imply that. Well, are you going to introduce me, or what?”

“Right, terribly sorry.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Crawly, this is Galans and Unust; Galans and Unust, this is Crawly. We’re… we know each other.”

“Fancy running into him here,” Unust said. “Well, you going to show him around?” 

“Good idea.” Crawly took Aziraphale’s hand, and—nothing exploded. No sizzle of singing flesh. Not even a buzz. His hand was only warm and callused. “Well?” he said, and Aziraphale realized he had been staring, for a few seconds, at their joined hands.

“Yes, of course. I suppose I can show you the barrows?” Aziraphale looked back to the two men. “Er, don’t stop on my account—”

“‘Course not,” Galans said, waving him off. “Go on, have fun.”

Aziraphale led Crawly out from the heart of the village, weaving through the group of circular stone dwellings. There wasn’t much to see here, unless one liked sheep, which Aziraphale did, but he wasn’t sure Crawly would be interested enough to stay long. 

“So… you like it here?” Crawly asked.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure. Alba was not nice this time of year, or any time of year. The rain came down in sheets, when it wasn’t light misty fog that crept into every crevice and chilled Aziraphale to his bones. He supposed that he did enjoy living here, regardless, though he wasn’t sure why. There was nothing to read, because writing hadn’t been invented yet, and he wasn’t even allowed to accelerate the process.

“I… enjoy the art scene,” Aziraphale said. “Oh, but it’s awful; they don’t have any form of writing system at all. And I have such strict instructions not to meddle with anything.”

“Is the food any good?”

“I’m afraid not. But I can’t leave until I’ve made sure everything is smoothed out between this tribe and a few others. It’ll be alright; I’m certain that good progress has been made. Why are _you_ here?”

Crawly shrugged. “You know. Chaos and destruction. Downstairs saw that your tribes were having some issues and they wanted me to come and make them worse.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. We’ve…” Aziraphale frowned. “Again?”

“What?”

“Well, it only seems like all of our assignments are the opposite of each other’s. You haven’t noticed how we’ve been running into each other?”

“Yeah, I noticed. It’s just, good, evil—”

“No, I _know_ ,” Aziraphale huffed, “but why couldn’t you be causing chaos and destruction in Valentia or—or anywhere other than here?”

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Crawly said. “Didn’t know you hated me that much.”

“I don’t,” Aziraphale said quickly.

“Then—”

“It’s very tempting, that’s all,” he continued, “for both of us to… well. I shouldn’t say.”

Crawly grinned. “Not do anything, either of us? That what you were thinking of, angel? There’s an idea.”

“Absolutely not. I never said that.” Aziraphale looked away pointedly as Crawly snickered. “Stop it, Crawly. You’re being ridiculous.”

“You’re the one who said we should both slack off.”

“I never—”

“You are one of a kind, aren’t you,” Crawly observed, and Aziraphale tripped over his shoes a bit. He pointedly said nothing until the barrows came into view.

Before them, in the shallow valley, were a cluster of low, flat stone circles in the earth, the same kind as most of the village was built out of. “Here’s where they bury their dead,” Aziraphale said as they stopped, and did not let go of his hand. “Er, some of them. Some they leave in the bogs. What is it?”

“Nothing,” Crawly said, quickly. “Just… humans. Creative, aren’t they?”

Crawly’s eyes were barely visible, even with Aziraphale this close to him, through the weave of his veil. But his smile—wider on one side than the other, he noticed, and with a dimple on only one side—said enough. He gave Aziraphale’s hand an almost imperceptible squeeze.

Aziraphale squeezed back. “I never know what they’ll come up with next. Maybe they’ll start building mountains.” 

It was odd, the feeling that unfolded in his stomach as he looked at Crawly. Crawly, he mused, would fit right in here. He would be positively striking with the braids in his red-as-copper hair and the iron war paint swirled over his lean body. Not that Aziraphale cared about his body in the least. And besides, it was ridiculous to think about it while they stood there: surrounded by the bodies of the tribe’s finest humans. Death, in all his glory. It was such an inappropriate place to be feeling—well. 

“What’re you thinking about, angel?” Crawly asked.

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale lied. The hand enfolded in his was becoming comfortable, no longer a hot, foreign weight. “Lots of things.”

“Good,” Crawly said.

“Good?”

“Having thoughts. Free will and all that. Philosophy. You can’t have civilization without philosophy, I’ll tell you that much.”

“I suppose not.”

“Unbecoming of an angel, though, having thoughts.”

“Oh, really.” Aziraphale waved him away with his free hand. “Unbecoming of a demon, holding an angel’s hand.”

“That’s…” The bony hand slipped out of Aziraphale’s. “‘M sorry.”

 _I didn’t mean that,_ Aziraphale wanted to say. _Hold my hand again…_ well, no, he could never say that. Instead he looked at Crawly out of the corner of his eye and tried to rationalize the tangle of words and wordless things in his chest. 

Crawly was only chewing on his lip; it was impossible to tell what he was looking at. He flipped up his veil, walked down the hill towards one, leaving Aziraphale behind, and inspected it, walking all around it, running his hands along the pitted rock. Once or twice he called out _what’s this?_ or _why—?_ and Aziraphale did his best to answer from what he knew already.

It would be alright, he thought, as long as he got his job done quickly and Crawly left Alba. 

And, of course, that really was the last thing he wanted.

* * *

They really were generous people, Aziraphale thought as he laid awake in his borrowed straw-and-animal-skin nest. If overbearing. (He’d gotten concerned looks the first time he tried _not_ pretending to sleep.) Aziraphale didn’t sleep, partially because he didn’t want to, and partially because it was too loud inside his head. As an angel, he could sense all sorts of things humans were deaf to. The constant flood of information was distracting. It was rather quiet tonight, though, for some reason.

Aziraphale sat up. 

There was normally a constant cosmic microwave background of sorts, a hum that Aziraphale could tune out most of the time, that was Crawly’s signature. If Aziraphale focused, he could follow it. Now it was unnaturally quiet in a way that it had quite literally never been before. There was really only one reason it would go silent like it had.

The thought of Crawly being discorporated made Aziraphale’s stomach twist, but discorporation seemed so unlikely, when Aziraphale had been putting him up for the night with a friend only a few hours ago. 

Maybe—

Maybe it had only been the priests. They had found some way to hide Crawly from Aziraphale’s angelic radar. If Crawly had been discorporated, there was nothing Aziraphale could do about it, but if it were the priests, Aziraphale told himself, slipping out of bed and into his clothing, if it were the priests, there was something to be done about that. 

He hesitated, then took a sword. It wasn’t his fault if these people were cavalier about leaving their weapons lying around. He’d bring it back, obviously, he thought, leaving the village.

Aziraphale had been to the henge only once before, but it was easy to find if he focused on… some kind of magical activity. Prophets he was no good at looking for, but he could find a witch any day if he knew that was what they were. He walked in the general direction of Something, and a wave of relief hit him as he spotted the henge, lit up with torches.

It was approximately twenty meters in diameter; tall stones were set up in two concentric circles, themselves within a ditch. There was a bluestone altar in the center, and a larger bluestone pillar, to which Crawly was tied—very much alive. There was only one way in or out.

“Excuse me,” Aziraphale said politely, lingering at the entrance. “What are you doing here?”

“Sacrificing the likes of him, what’s it look like?” This one Aziraphale recognized as Nectan, the chieftain. He’d eaten dinner with the bastard just a few nights ago.

“Well—why?” Aziraphale demanded, pushing through the group of priests. “You all know he’s my... That is, I know him!”

“The cat man? He’s an evil spirit!”

“Snake,” Crawly interjected.

“Yes, but he’s _my_ evil spirit.” Aziraphale was mere feet away from Crawly now, holding his sword at the ready. “So I would very much appreciate it if you would allow me to cut him down.”

“We could kill them both,” another priest suggested. 

“No!” Aziraphale cried. “Wait. I should like to… at least talk to him, before you kill him. I promise I won’t—er.”

“Very well.”

Aziraphale’s eyes darted around the group of priests as he slowly backed up to where Crawly was bound. “What have they done to you?” he whispered.

“Veil slipped,” Crawly hissed. “Saw my eyes. The whole blesss— _bloody_ henge is a demon trap. What the Heaven do you think you’re going to do with that sword?”

“Goodness, I don’t know, perhaps use it?” Aziraphale shot back. “Why did you let them capture you in the first place?”

“ _Let_ them—” Crawly began. “Why the _Heaven_ would I—no, never mind. Please tell me you have a plan.”

Aziraphale gave him his best of-course-I-have-a-plan look and snapped his fingers. What he didn’t expect was for nothing at all to happen. “I thought you said it was a demon—”

“Yeah, well, it probably worksss on your lot, too. Occult, ethereal, remember?” Crawly snapped.

“Then I don’t have a plan.”

“You’ll have to distract them, that’s the plan.”

“Very well,” Aziraphale said. He glanced around the priests, who were beginning to look annoyed. “Excuse me, everyone. If you dis— _kill_ him, there will be dire consequences. He’s, er. He’s protecting your crops. If you kill him, you will all die of starvation.”

“No he’s not,” one of the priests shouted. “Just kill them both.”

“No, no, let him talk,” Nectan said, rubbing his chin. He waved his hand in a go-on motion.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Well, you see,” he began, “this dear fellow’s eyes, they’re… He’s a deity.”

“So he’s _not_ an evil spirit?” a confused priest asked. 

“No! No, of course not. I never said that. All I said was—”

“Our crops,” a third priest offered helpfully. “He protects ‘em.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, relieved. “Yes, he does. So there you have it. You shouldn’t kill him.” He turned around and grinned at Crawly.

Crawly grimaced. They couldn’t be _that_ stupid.

“Are you sure?” one said. “Those cat eyes look evil to me.”

“Snake eyes,” Crawly groaned.

“They’re not evil,” Aziraphale said quickly. “Actually, I think they look rather beautiful. And, and, they symbolize a… good harvest.”

“Well ‘lright,” Nectan said after a moment. “Cut him down, then; you're free to go.”

“ _OhthankGod_ ,” Aziraphale said. With one quick motion, he slashed the ropes binding Crawly to the boulder neatly down the middle, leaving Crawly himself without a scratch on him. Once a celestial swordsman, always a celestial swordsman, Crawly thought, somewhat hysterically. Aziraphale grabbed his hand again (wasn’t he a lucky demon) with his own, wonderfully warm, and kept the sword between them and the priests.

“Stay close to me,” Aziraphale murmured. 

“Not a problem,” Crawly replied. 

He got the odd sense that he was walking through a mausoleum as the priests let them go. It was too odd. There was no way it was going to be this easy. Yet they kept walking, out of the ring, and no one was swinging a sword at him. They were meters away from the henge now. He could still hear the priests talking behind them as they miraculously walked away, and wait, never mind, they were shouting. 

“You idiots, we don’t have no _cat_ god,” someone said. 

“Snake,” Crawly yelled. “Walk faster,” he said to Aziraphale. 

“Are you sure? I thought one of ‘em had the ears.”

“I told you, _artistic license_ —hey, don’t let them get away!”

Crawly looked over his shoulder and jolted. “Angel,” he said nervously.

“Not a problem, dear boy,” Aziraphale said brightly. He stopped, stopping Crawly with him, and tossed away the sword.

“Aziraphale?” He would have to take back what he thought earlier. There were _plenty_ of people swinging swords at him. 

But the angel’s wings extended magnificently out of nowhere, unfurling like two fluffy sails. Crawly had no time to admire them, however, because he was quickly being grabbed by the waist and they shot into the air so suddenly that Crawly’s teeth buzzed. Or maybe that was only him hyperventilating. Whatever the case, they climbed at a rate that would have been impossible if these corporations knew what drag was. 

“Excuse me, but could someone return that sword I dropped to Drust, please,” Aziraphale shouted at the shrinking group of priests, but he sounded perfectly calm. “There; problem solved.”

“Of course he returns the sword,” said Crawly, shaken. He rubbed a trembling hand down the side of his face. “I have my own wings, you know.”

“Yes, well, you didn’t take them out fast enough,” Aziraphale said primly. The henge was getting smaller and smaller as he looked down. “I could drop you if you’d like.”

“Bet you won’t.”

A particularly forceful gust of wind hit them and sent them spinning in the air, leaving Crawly clinging to Aziraphale like a leech. Or like a wet cat, with the way the fog plastered his hair to his forehead. He was shivering and—oh, his dignity was fucked. Aziraphale respectfully said nothing. 

Crawly cleared his throat once the shock had passed. They were sailing now; Aziraphale had evidently regained his common sense. “You going to wipe their memories?” he asked.

“I think we’re too far away now, aren’t we?”

“Well, look at it this way,” he muttered. “If we’re lucky, they’ll include us in their mythology.”

The angel laughed, the same way he had done on the wall of Eden. This time, he didn’t look guilty afterwards. Crawly smiled. 

“Well, there goes my mission,” Aziraphale sighed, still grinning. “Where shall I leave you?”

“I dunno. Anywhere, I guess.” Crawly tucked his chin over Aziraphale’s shoulder to avoid having to look him in the eye. “I... appreciate it.”

“Of course. Just trying to preserve Her creations, that’s all. I don’t particularly like you.”

A laugh burst out of Crawly. “I don’t like you, too.”

They left Alba behind, and Crawly, now that he'd experienced it, could truthfully say good riddance.


End file.
